Transformation Tuesday: Week 126 & 127

Hello: I'm back... Let's talk about surgery!

Well it's been an eventful fortnight to say the least! The hard part is over, and now I'm well and truly on the road to recovery so it makes sense to put pen to paper and write a little (large) update. I've been inundated with the loveliest messages, gifts and flowers over the last week that have meant the absolute world to me, and as I haven't been in the best position to reply in a lot of detail hopefully this will clear everything up!

(IMAGE SOURCED FROM www.instagram.com/refinery29)

The run up to my surgery was as hectic as I expected, and if I'm being honest I think that was the best course of action. I'm genuinely surprised that I actually went through with it: I'm convinced now that if I'd had time to stop and really think about what I'd signed up for I would have bottled out. Yes, I'd read lots about the procedure itself, but that's as far as it went and I approached it from a pretty cold and clinical angle. At no point did I really apply what I was reading to my situation or truly consider things like the pain or how I would handle loosing my independence while I recovered. I just knew that it would all work out in the end and as my options were either have the operation or living with my skin for the rest of my life, in my eyes it wasn't much of a choice. It's rather naive now I think about it, but probably not a bad thing as I have a tendency to overthink scenarios and talk myself out of them... Before I knew it I had checked in at the hospital on Monday; by which point I would have looked like a prize prat if I'd have decided to chicken out.

Time seemed to move faster than normal at the hospital. Within an hour I'd gone through all the paperwork with a nurse, settled into my room, met the anaesthesiologist, had my compression stockings fitted and been drawn on and photographed by my surgeon. I was told it might be a while before they came and fetched me for surgery, but less than 10 minutes later I was leaving my parents in my room and being wheeled to theatre. I remember complimenting the anaesthesiologist on the fact that the so-called "sharp scratch" to fit my cannula was scarily accurate as it was the first time a needle had ever felt like a sharp scratch and not like I was being stabbed, and then the next thing I knew I was retching violently in post-op and being folded into a compression corset. Apparently I was in theatre for around 5 hours and then another an hour in recovery before being wheeled back to the ward. I remember my surgeon coming to update my parents, but I felt so sick I couldn't open my eyes so I think everyone assumed I was pretty out of it rather than trying not to vomit!

There's been a little confusion as to what I actually had done so hopefully this will help... I had a breast lift and an extended abdominoplasty and as my pre-op nurse said, I look trussed up like a Christmas turkey. This means that my breasts have been lifted so high I keep forgetting where they are and knocking them against things (no joke: it's ridiculous, even comical) - basically think a cross between Madonna's conical bra and Amy Poehler in Mean Girls. I'm not worried at all though: this is perfectly normal and they'll drop over the next few months to a more natural shape. At the same time I had an extended abdominoplasty: my surgeon has sewn together my damaged abdominal muscles (see diagram below of vaguely what I mean), and then pulled my skin tightly over them and removed all of the excess. It's "extended" because my incision goes almost around to my back on both sides. The scars will be pretty extensive but I'm not particularly vain and honestly couldn't care less: I think it'll look miles better than the skin! Also I simply adore my surgeon (Mr Iqbal at the Spire Cheshire) and he came across as a massive perfectionist so I'm utterly convinced that once the dressings are off everything will be super neat rather than a Frankenstein hack job.

Overall my surgeon removed around 10lbs of skin. Woooooop!

Recovery has been a mixed bag. I spent 2 nights in hospital where I discovered I had a capacity for pain I didn't know I possessed. As my muscles have been repaired it initially felt like I'd done a million crunches and pulled something: the pain was tight and consistent, and I couldn't bend or twist (still can't), or even stand up straight and not hunched over like a little old lady. I'm better now, but it's taken a week! To start with it was unbearable and my morphine drip swiftly became my new best friend. Certain aches ridiculously felt no worse than my periods before I was prescribed intense pain killers so that made it more bearable knowing I'd endured similar for years before diagnosis. Others were on another level entirely, and for someone so pathetic with pain I've handled more than I thought I'd be able to. It hurt to lie, sit or stand - basically anything that required engaging my abs in any capacity - and merely moving from lying in bed to sitting on the edge had me retching and crying. The nurses were largely sympathetic, upping my pain meds and helping me to do the most ludicrously basic of things from occasionally shuffling from the bed to the chair, to topping up my glass of water, to going to the toilet. Everything was made a little more difficult by the 3 drains coming out of my stomach, but a wonderful night auxiliary nurse found me a plastic bag to put them in so moving around was significantly easier even if I was carrying a bag of drains! For someone so intensely private it's been a struggle to accept that I've needed help, and all sense of dignity has gone completely out of the window. It's awful!

(GIF SOURCED FROM www.hellogiggles.com)

I saw my surgeon again on the Tuesday evening and he was so happy that I immediately calmed down. I never really knew what was going on with my care as during the day, and particularly on Wednesday I was left for hours at a time by the nurses with the call button out of reach and my door closed, often in pain, scared and sick. Having to shout for help without panicking too much wasn't the best experience and while I can appreciate how busy they all were I didn't feel like I was ever a priority, and instead constantly an afterthought or an inconvenience. It took them the best part of 4 hours to discharge me on Wednesday, mainly because they kept forgetting about me... Nurses have a compassion and selflessness I absolutely do not possess and I have so much respect for them, but to be honest the care I received last week during the day frequently did not match that on the Spire website, the brochures, the care I'd received up to my surgery or any of the literature I've read about the hospital. It's a shame, but I suppose I should just be lucky that everything went exactly as it should have done and I wasn't ever an emergency case at any point.

(GIF SOURCED FROM www.buzzfeed.com)

My parents have been incredible. As I said before, I (stupidly) didn't really consider the post-op practicalities - I think I'd been so detached with the research that I hadn't let it apply to me, and had also been building to the op for so long that I hadn't had the brain capacity to really come up with a plan for "after". I definitely didn't anticipate being so weak. Well, they've sorted everything: I'm the luckiest daughter in the whole world! I came home eventually on Wednesday evening and found that my parents had constructed a pillow mountain on my bed complete with a hidden contraption to provide extra support. It's a work of art but has ensured that I've actually slept 8 hours every night so I can't complain at all! They've forced me into a routine and have adopted various jobs such as mum being the one to religiously dole out my paracetamol every few hours, and dad turns into a hairdresser each evening after work and washes my hair over the sink (side note: I thought I was going to have to become at one with nature and embrace the grease in an effort to teach my hair to go longer between washes, but he can't cope with that - and in reality neither can I - and as such it has to be cleaned every day haha). That only scratches the surface of what they've done for me both physically and emotionally, and I literally couldn't survive without them.

As the week's gone on I've made a lot of progress. I can now stand up straight and do multiple laps of the house (I live in a bungalow with a long corridor which is helping massively!) every hour or so; aside from a horribly rough Friday I no longer feel remotely sick; and I'm finally eating again. I ate two sandwiches between Monday and Wednesday so needless to say my energy levels were rubbish last week. I'm up to 3 mini meals a day (any larger than that and my full stomach presses against my muscles in the most painful way) and the odd snack, and I'm trying to be as healthy as possible as ideally I don't want to put on any weight when I'm lacking normal mobility levels. My stomach is quite swollen at the moment but that will go down over the next few weeks - and the compression corset that I'll wear for the foreseeable future helps with that too -  and the novelty of looking straight down and seeing a clean line to my feet for the first time ever hasn't worn off yet. I dropped in to the ward on Sunday to have a doctor check a dressing that was worrying me, but aside from that I think everything's going exactly as it should.

(GIF SOURCED FROM www.buzzfeed.com)

At the moment I'm trying to strike the right balance between pushing myself to make progress, and pushing myself too far and inadvertently undoing everything. I'm struggling to do nothing in-between meals and walks, but now I can focus better I'm thinking Netflix binges and a Harry Potter re-read are on the horizon!

Any book / television / film recommendations are welcome!

Thank you for all of your messages and well wishes: they've meant more to me than you'll ever know and definitely bolstered me through moments of weakness. While I won't be posting any pictures of my skin any time soon (that's a step too far for me I'm afraid), regular written updates will resume each week as normal.

Bring on recovery!